My journey began in Istanbul and after a five hour bus trip, arrived at the Kum Hotel near Eceabat, the closest accommodation to the battlefields. The party was eager and enthusiastic as none, apart from the tour leader Mat McLachlan, having ever been to Gallipoli before.

It all goes back to the massive German offensive of March-April 1918. At the time, the German Army had recently been boosted by 50 Divisions from the Eastern Front with the collapse of Russia and keen to strike before the growing impact of American troops then arriving in Europe. The Germans struck along the British line across a wide front of 64 kilometres (40 miles)between Arras and St Quentin on the 21st March 1918 in an operation code named Michael.

There seems various reasons for this, Anzac Day and indeed remembrance generally, has had a welcome resurgence and interest. Some say it takes five generations to get over a war and perhaps it is just now that interest and commemoration can embrace the terrible loss of the Great War....